Privacy curtains for penal institutions

ABSTRACT

A shower and toilet stall privacy screen system for users in penal system environments. The system comprises hook and loop fastener pads affixed to adjacent walls of the stalls and co-operating hook and loop fastener pads affixed to flexible, non-clear sheet materials sized and adapted to extend across the opening of the stall. Feet and head areas of users are unobstructed so that security personnel can view same to ensure single use occupancy of each stall.

I claim the benefit of the priority of my provisional patent application No. 61/685746, filed Mar. 24, 2012. Its disclosure is herewith incorporated in full by this reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention is in the field of privacy curtains the installation and use of which are safe for penal institution use in juvenile and adult incarceration facilities and in mental institutions.

BACKGROUND OF THE ART

Penal institutions, both for persons pending hearings, arraignment, and/or trial and those convicted of crimes, and wards for mentally ill persons, typically have communal toilet and shower facilities for inmates' use. According to federal penal and civil rights standards for privacy and also according to institutional safety requirements for both inmates and institution staff, persons using showers must have their private parts (breasts, genitals, and buttocks) obscured from view by others, but staff must be able to observe visually whether more than one person is occupying a shower or toilet stall at any given time. These standards are enforced by, for instance, the US Bureau of Prisons for facilities in both federal, state, and local county and city institutions.

Open shower stalls with no curtains offer no privacy to users and are prohibited by the standards for such institutions. Heavy fines and correction orders are issued on initial and repeat violations.

The common, commercially available solution for meeting the prevailing standards for shower stalls has been to have a high rod or sliding track, above head height, for suspending a shower curtain having see-through netting or mesh at the upper and lower parts of the curtain and an opaque or translucent center section extending from the knees to the shoulders of a typical user. These curtains both are expensive to make, buy, install, and maintain and also have led to hanging deaths by inmates' wrapping the curtains about their necks and/or pulling of the curtains entirely from the tracks or rods. Also, any rods and other metal fittings can be removed by inmates and used as weapons, whether sharpened or not, within the institution. Metal parts, whether rods, screws, nails, and staples, are discouraged, but few alternatives are available for installing and using such curtains.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of this invention to provide inexpensive, reliable, easy to install and maintain, sufficient shower curtains and other privacy screens for institutions in which pre-trial detainees, convicted persons, and/or mentally ill persons can have mandated privacy while allowing monitoring of occupancy of such shower and toilet areas while also avoiding damage by and danger to users from shower etc. curtains and their installation and mounting devices.

This object is attained by using a simple flat, rectangular, opaque or translucent curtain material of any suitable sheeting, having Velcro®-type hook-and-loop pad material affixing corners of the material to walls adjacent the entry to each stall. The curtain material may be of any durable cloth, plastic, water-proofed paper, or other material suited to such use and preferably also resisting mold and bacterial growth. Each curtain is sized to fit across one stall opening horizontally and, for a shower curtain, to extend from the knees to the shoulders of the typical standing user of the shower facilities. Each curtain would either be brought to the stall by each user or left at the stall between uses, hanging from one side of the stall entrance when the utility is not in use. The curtain can be readily re-mounted by a user from within the shower or toilet stall by pressing the pads affixed to the curtain material to corresponding pads adhered to the enclosure wall.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the overall arrangement and layout of the invention in use on a stall where affording privacy is important, providing for instance knee-to-shoulder privacy to a user of a shower stall or an adjacent toilet stall in an institutional environment while providing security to the user and staff by allowing observation by supervising and security personnel.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view through one corner of the curtain material, the hook and loop pad being affixed to the material, and the cooperating hook and hoop pad being affixed to the shower or toilet enclosure wall.

THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

A user U who is an inmate of a penal or a mental health facility, as a detainee, convict, or inmate, is entitled to privacy while in custody, under federal law and regulation for prisons and in respect of civil rights requirements. This include toilet and showering activities in common areas, where provided. In Cook County, Ill., repeated investigations by US Bureau of Prisons personnel have led to fines and correction orders imposed on the Correctional system there for privacy violations. The present inventor, a security officer in the Cook County system, proposed the system now used there to avoid such violations and to provide needed privacy to inmates while affording security in the facility.

FIG. 1 shows a series of individual-use shower stalls S and an adjacent toilet stall T, each being fitted for use of the invention by having four Velcro®-type hook and loop fastener pads 10, 12, 14, and 16 glued permanently to the wall W, as shown in FIG. 2, adjacent each of the shower or toilet stall openings. Upper pads 10, 12 are fastened at about shoulder height, and pads 14 and 16 are fastened at about knee height of the typical user U in the facility. These pads are glued to the wall W, not stapled, screwed, or nailed in place, so as to avoid security issues with metal objects in the facility.

A sheet 20, of plastic, cloth, waterproof paper, or the like, is opaque or translucent and not of a clear material whether dry or wet. Each sheet 20 has fitted at its four corners, as by stitching with thread, with corresponding hook and loop fasteners 22. In use, the sheet 20 is affixed at its four corners firmly to the pads 10-16 on the walls W adjacent one of the shower stalls S or toilet stall T, as in FIG. 1.

A user U may keep his or her own curtain 20 for use each time a shower or toilet is to be used, or users may leave the curtains 20 on the shower room wall 20 as at the left in FIG. 1, as may be directed by facility rule and practice. The user simply presses the pad 22 on the inside surface of the curtain at each corner against the corresponding pads 10, 12, 14, and 16 on the shower or toilet room wall W to hold the curtain 20 in place during his or her use of the facility. Taller or shorter inmates may have different sized curtains 20, and the pads on the walls W can be lengthened or replicated to allow suitable placement of the curtains for all the inmates and also so that a security guard can see the feet and head of the person in the stall and ensure that multiple people are not in a single stall at once.

The same system is applied to toilet stalls as at T in FIG. 1, which may be communal and lack doors in such facilities.

A distinct advantage of the curtains with their Velcro® hook and loop attachments is that they do not support the weight of a person but pull free at 20-30 pounds of force if properly sized, so no risk of hanging is presented by this system as compared with prior rod and track support systems. When a curtain is pulled down, it is easily replaced on its pad without tools or special skills.

Many variations may be made in the invention as shown and its manner of use, without departing from the principles of the invention as described herein and/or as claimed as my invention. Minor variations will not avoid the use of the invention. 

I claim as my invention:
 1. A system for affording privacy to inmates of security institutions while using common sanitary facilities therein, including at least one of showers and toilets each provided within a stall having a vertical surface at either side of an entrance to said stall, the system comprising: a pair of vertically spaced hook and loop pads affixed to each of the vertical surfaces at either side of said entrance; and a flexible sheet material of generally rectangular shape that can extend across the entrance to the stall and which has affixed to upper and lower corners thereof hook and loop pads adapted and spaced to cooperate with and attach to the pads on the vertical surfaces adjacent said stall, the sheet material being opaque or translucent both when wet and dry, and the vertical extent of the sheet being sufficient to afford privacy to a person's body within the stall generally from his or her knees to his or her shoulders while leaving the head and feet areas of and adjacent the user visible to a security person outside the stall.
 2. The privacy system defined in claim 1, wherein the hook and loop pads are adhered to the vertical surfaces adjacent the stall entrance with glue or other adhesive, not with any metal fastener.
 3. The privacy system defined in claim 1, wherein the sheet is of one of plastic, cloth, waterproof paper, and like flexible material.
 4. The privacy system defined in claim 1, wherein the stall is for giving showers to users.
 5. The privacy system defined in claim 1, wherein the stall is a toilet stall.
 6. The privacy system defined in claim 1, wherein each user has and keeps his or her own sheet material and affixes it onto the vertical surfaces for each use and removes it from all four corner attachments when not in use.
 7. A privacy curtain system for secure institutions wherein shower or toilet stalls are monitored for use by only a single user at a time but said users are afforded reasonable privacy to their bodies between knees and shoulders, the system adapted for use in stalls having entrances with adjacent vertical walls, and wherein: said adjacent walls are fitted with non-metallic fasteners for engaging cooperating non-metallic fasteners on said curtain, which comprises an opaque or translucent flexible sheet material adapted to extend across the entrance and is held in place by said cooperating fasteners. 